Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

“Wallpaper,” Denton said in reply to Lynley's question. He gestured with the portfolios he was carrying. “Samples.”

“For the spare rooms,” Helen added. “Have you looked at the walls in there lately, Tommy? The paper looks as if it hasn't been changed since the turn of the century.”

“It hasn't.”

“Just as I suspected. Well, if we don't get it changed before she gets here, I'm afraid your aunt Augusta will change it for us. I thought we might head her off. I had a look through the books at Peter Jones yesterday, and they were good enough to let me pinch a few at closing time. Just for today though. Wasn't that kind of them?” She started up the stairs, saying over her shoulder, “Why're you back so soon? Have you sorted everything out already?”

Denton trailed her. Lynley made a third in their little procession, suitcase in his hand. He'd followed some information to London, he told his wife. And there were documents he wanted St. James to look over. “The post-mortems. Some photos and x-rays,” he said.

“Arguments among the experts?” she asked, a reasonable assumption. It wouldn't have been the first time St. James had been requested to mediate a dispute among scientists.

“Just some questions in my own mind,” Lynley told her, “as well as a need to look over some information Winston's managed to gather.”

“Ah.” She looked over her shoulder and offered him a fleeting smile. “It's quite nice to have you back.”

The spare rooms in need of refurbishment were on the second floor of the house. Lynley left his suitcase inside the door of their bedroom and then joined his wife and Denton up above. Helen was laying sample sheets of wallpaper out on the bed in the first of the rooms, removing the portfolios from Denton's outstretched arms one at a time and making her selections with infinite care. The younger man was wearing an expression of long-suffering patience throughout this activity. But he brightened considerably when Lynley walked into the room.

He said hopefully, “Here he is. So if you won't be needing me…?” to Lynley's wife.

“I can't stay, Denton” was Lynley's reply.

The other man drooped.

“A problem?” Lynley said. “Have you a sweet young thing waiting somewhere today?” It wouldn't be unusual. Denton's pursuit of ladies was the stuff of legend.

“I've the half-price ticket booth waiting,” Denton answered. “I hoped to make it in advance of the crowd.”

“Ah, yes. I see. Not another musical, I hope?”

“Well…” Denton looked embarrassed. His love of the spectacles posing regularly as West End theatre soaked up a good part of his wages each month. He was almost as bad as a cocaine addict when it came to greasepaint, dimmed lights, and applause.

Lynley took the portfolios from Denton's arms. “Go,” he said. “God forbid that we keep you from experiencing the latest theatrical extravaganza.”

“It's art,” Denton protested.

“So you keep telling me. Go. And if you buy the accompanying CD, I'll ask you not to play it when I'm home.”

“He's a real culture snob, isn't he?” Denton asked Helen, his voice confidential.

“As ever there was.”

She continued laying wallpaper samples out on the bed once Denton had left them. She rejected three samples, replaced them with three others, and took another portfolio from her husband's arms. She said, “You don't need to stand there holding them, Tommy. You've work to do, haven't you?”

“It can wait a few minutes.”

“This will take far longer than a few minutes. You know how hopeless I am when it comes to making up my mind about anything. I had thought of something rather pretty with flowers. Subdued and calming. You know what I mean. But Charlie's put me off that idea. God forbid we ask him to escort Aunt Augusta into a room he considers twee. What about this one, unicorns and leopards? Isn't it ghastly?”

“But suitable for guests whose visits one wishes to curtail.”

Helen laughed. “There is that.”

Lynley said nothing until she'd made her selections from all the portfolios he was holding. She covered the bed with them and went on to litter most of the floor. All the time he thought how strange it was that two days previously they'd been at odds with each other. He felt neither irritation nor animosity now. Nor did he feel that sense of betrayal that had triggered within him such righteous indignation. He experienced only a quiet surging of his heart towards hers, which some men might have identified as lust and dealt with accordingly but which he knew had nothing to do with sex and everything on earth to do with love.

He said, “You had my number in Derbyshire. I gave it to Den-ton. To Simon as well.”

She looked up. A lock of chestnut hair caught at the corner of her mouth. She brushed it away.

“You didn't ring,” he said.

“Was I meant to ring?” There was nothing coy about the question. “Charlie gave me the number, but he didn't say you'd asked me to-”

“You weren't supposed to ring. But I hoped you would. I wanted to talk to you. You left the house in the middle of our conversation the other morning, and I felt uneasy with the way things were left between us. I wanted to clear the air.”

“Oh.” The word was small. She went to the room's old Georgian dressing table and sat tentatively on the edge of its stool. She watched him gravely, a shadow playing across her cheek where her hair shielded her face from a shaft of sunlight that streamed in through the window. She looked so much like a schoolgirl waiting to be disciplined that Lynley found himself reassessing what he'd believed were his rational grievances against her.

He said, “I'm sorry about the row, Helen. You were giving your opinion. That's more than your right. I jumped all over you because I wanted you on my side. She's my wife, I thought, and this is my work and these are the decisions that I'm forced to take in the course of my work. I want her behind me, not in front of me blocking my way. I didn't think of you as an individual in that moment, just as an extension of me. So when you questioned my decision about Barbara, I saw red. My temper got away from me. And I'm sorry for it.”

Her gaze lowered. She ran her fingers along the edge of the stool and examined their route. “I didn't leave the house because you lost your temper. God knows I've seen you lose it before.”

“I know why you left. And I shouldn't have said it.”

“Said…?”

“That remark. The tautology bit. It was thoughtless and cruel. I'd like to have your forgiveness for having said it.”

She looked up at him. “They were only words, Tommy. You don't need to ask forgiveness for your words.”

“I ask nonetheless.”

“No. What I mean is that you're already forgiven. You were forgiven at once if it comes to that. Words aren't reality, you know. They're only expressions of what people see.” She bent and took up one of the wallpaper samples, holding it the length of her arm and evaluating it for some moments. His apology, it seemed, had been accepted. But he had the distinct feeling that the subject itself was miles away from being put at rest between them.

Still, following her lead, he said helpfully in reference to the wallpaper, “That looks like a good choice.”

“Do you think so?” Helen let it fall to the floor. “Choices are what defeat me. Having to make them in the first place. And having to live with them afterwards.”

Warning flares shot up in Lynley's consciousness. His wife hadn't come into their marriage the most eager of brides. Indeed, it had taken some time to persuade her that marriage was in her interests at all. The youngest of five sisters who'd married in every possible circumstance, from into the Italian aristocracy to on the land to a Montana cattleman, she'd been a witness to the vicissitudes and vagaries that were the offspring of any permanent attachment. And she'd never prevaricated about her reluctance to become a party to what might take from her more than it could ever give. But she'd also never been a woman to let momentary discord prevail over her common sense. They'd exchanged a few harsh words, that was all. Words didn't necessarily presage anything.